Appeal court sends rapist to jail for another two years

A grandfather who had completed a jail sentence for raping his wife’s 15-year-old niece must go back to prison in September to serve another two years, the Court of Criminal Appeal has ruled.

The court gave Patrick Hegarty, aged 69, of Ross Rd, Killarney, Co Kerry, until Sept 3 to arrange his affairs after it doubled an effective two-year sentence imposed on him in Feb 2011, and which he has since completed.

The former pest control company employee had been sentenced to seven years with the last five suspended over the repeated rape of his English niece on a number of occasions during a summer holiday she spent in his home in 1991.